Women Directors and the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema

From the mid-1930s until the mid-1960s, only two women had careers as directors in Hollywood: Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino. By 1980, there were an estimated 16 women directing feature films in and around Hollywood. In her new book, Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema, scholar Maya Montañez Smukler argues that the 1970s represent a crucial decade for women directors working in and around Hollywood. Still suffering from a postwar slump, the film industry in the 1960s and into the early 1970s was forced to reckon with a growing independent filmmaking community, the enduring dominance of television, and a changing audience demographic whose tastes were influenced by the many social movements of the era. During these years, second-wave feminism challenged all parts of the social, political, and cultural landscape in the United States, including the institutionalized sexism that ran rampant in Hollywood.

Liberating Hollywood examines how the collision of these social and industrial conditions allowed, for the first time in 40 years, the number of women directing feature films to increase significantly. Our eight-night screening series showcases the wide variety of narrative films directed by women who began their careers during this critical decade. Working across production cultures—from low-budget exploitation, to independent art house cinema, and the Hollywood studio—these women made their mark in one of the most mythologized eras of American cinema.

Author and series co-curator Maya Montañez Smukler will sign copies of her new book, Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema, on January 25 and 26 and introduce each screening.

This series was co-curated by Maya Montañez Smukler and KJ Relth; program notes written and edited by the same.